Women Deserve Better

Thanks to Leslie Cannold for passing this on. As she said, strap in, and hold on. Folk using readers may have to visit to see...

I think I really am two people.

I'm getting more than I bargained for with this multi-disciplinary thing. Whenever I read medical or scientific papers my philosopher persona continually shakes its head in disbelief at the all too frequent internal contradictions and ambiguity caused by sloppy choice of words. Yet if I try to read philosophy my scientist persona thunks its head on the desk in frustration at subtle distinctions it sees as time-wasting bickering over definitions or processes that can't be tested.

I just wish they would talk to each other for a bit and leave me alone!

Letter to Essential Baby re AVN link

Sent this a few minutes ago. It would be so nice to get a reasonable response! We'll see:


Dear Editor,

I write regarding the article in Essential Baby entitled "Vaccines and Your Child".

I have no complaint about the article, but I am gravely concerned that it links to the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN).

The AVN are currently under investigation by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for providing misleading information to parents who are researching vaccination.

I am deeply worried that if this link to AVN is provided by Essential Baby it will give the AVN a credibility that I am convinced they do not deserve.

They are demonstrably anti-vaccination and it would be extremely difficult to find a doctor in NSW (where they are based) who would recommend them as a balanced or reliable source of information on vaccines.

I have personally gone through their claims and found most of them to be outdated or cherry-picked. (I have a BSc/BA Hons and have worked in an industry where we create anti-bodies for research.) I published my (long) findings on my otherwise uninteresting blog - http://emervents.blogspot.com/2009/06/critique-of-avns-10-reasons-to-think.html

I recommend you change the link to the Victorian Government's information page which also has vaccine information available in languages other than English and has links to recent data on vaccine coverage etc. http://www.health.vic.gov.au/immunisation

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Extension vs Intension

If you have arrived here hoping for a clear explanation of extension and intension I would read no further and go to Garth Kemerling's page on Meaning and Definition which is excellent. In this post I'm just having a play with the words and I'm likely to muddy the waters rather than enlighten you. (Also, it's very probably false.)

The extension of the term ‘extension’ consists of every word that could be said to be extensional.

Whereas the intension of the term ‘extention’ is the criteria for extension which is that the word be extensional.

The extension of the term ‘intension’ consists of every word that could be said to be intensional.

Whereas the intension of ‘intension’ is the criteria for intension which is that there be criteria a word must meet before the word intension applies.

OK?

An honest account of motherly anger? About time.

Film-maker Julia Black, a BAFTA and Grierson nominated independent documentary maker, is making a film about motherly anger. As a mother of two, she is interested in shifting the taboo that surrounds a mother's anger towards her child or children and wishes to research into how many mothers, like her, have been shocked by the level of anger they experience.

Please take a few minutes to fill in this online questionnaire. All answers are entirely anonymous and cannot be traced to your e-mail address.

www.survey.ingenious2.co.uk

I did it, and it can be done in ten minutes or so. There's also room for the more loquacious of us to comment at the end which was nice (for me anyway!).

I love this sentence...

...from an old essay:

Deleuze and Guattari state that “The problem of philosophy is to acquire a consistency without losing the infinite into which thought plunges.” (p 42). It is the conceptual persona that drinks from the infinite and vomits possibilities onto the philosopher's page. They are the explorers, the provocateurs and engineers of thought, the part of the philosopher that ventures into the new, awake while the remainder wallows in dogma anaesthetic. This aspect of the creative process is a necessary part of thought and thus for Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical ontology, indispensable.

...and I can't help wondering where all of my conceptual personae have got to :(

In support of Ken McLeod's complaint against the AVN

Better late than never I guess...

To whom it may concern,

I write to support Ken McLeod's complaint against the Australian Vaccination Network. I found AVN after a rather heated discussion with friends about vaccination and was so appalled at the misinformation on the AVN's website that I wrote two lengthy blog posts calling them out on their errors.

http://emervents.blogspot.com/2009/05/thinking-about-vaccines-thinking-of.html

http://emervents.blogspot.com/2009/06/critique-of-avns-10-reasons-to-think.html

I have two degrees, one of them in science, and sometimes I use my advantages (education and access to university resources) to call out organisations who would seek to sway the public with, if I'm kind, mistakes and outdated information.

In summary, the AVN use information that is often outdated, cherry picked, or just plain erroneous, and I think that it is of grave concern that well meaning parents might use their information as a basis for an important decision regarding their children's health.

Please keep in mind that these are blog posts, the tone is meant to be conversational and sometimes acrimonious (I get grumpy when tired). Nonetheless, the second one especially should give a clear indication of the kinds of untruths the AVN are happy to have parents believe. I am not happy about it at all. Hence this letter of support for Ken McLeod's complaint.

Brief birth language...

Quite often when an unusual birth story hits the news you'll read about the hero civilian (or other non-medico) delivering the baby as though the mother was so much chopped liver. Nice to see a news article getting the labour the right way around for once!